LEGO® Serious Play®

If you watch most meetings or brainstorming sessions the majority of contributions come from only a small percentage of the participants. LEGO® Serious Play® is a methodology created to ensure full participation from everyone on the team, ensuring everyone is invested in both the process and the outcome. 

It is particularly useful for:

  • Team development
  • Strategic planning
  • Innovation
  • Customer experience planning
  • Change management
  • Product development
  • Vision and Mission development and alignment
LEGO® Serious Play® (or LSP) taps into the deep riches of experience, insight and thinking of your entire team. You may have heard the term “Still waters run deep”, meaning sometimes those who seem the quietest are the ones thinking the most deeply. They may not know how to articulate what they are thinking just yet, but they are quietly sitting there joining all the dots and ruminating over big ideas. The dynamics of traditional meetings mean those who have these profound insights or are willing to think differently and innovate are often not heard. As leaders, we know that we don’t have all the answers. We need all the best thinking to be on the table.

Some key aspects of the LSP methodology include:

  • Accessible entry point for everyone. No previous experience or special skills are required, especially not technical LEGO® building skills.
  • Every member participates and has a voice.
  • We trust your team and begin with the assumption that the answers are in the room.
  • Thinking with your hands unlocks the brain in a different way to writing or talking.
  • The process of physically making something leads to more valuable, insightful and honest discussions.
  • Externalising ideas de-personalises them so ideas can be explored more fully.
  • All participants have an equal standing, they all have something “on the table” as they all construct a model with ideas and insights to contribute.
  • By off-loading the ideas from the brain and into a physical object, the brain gains space and capacity to think about different aspects of a problem.

The method is built upon fundamental knowledge about how people and groups best learn and develop.

The process is very different from usual approach of a leader or manager running a meeting by describing the issue, challenges and goals and then the rest of the conversation following on from there. This traditional approach sidesteps a wealth of insight in the early stages of defining the issue and can even end up with the group trying to solve the wrong problem. For this reason, LSP is always run by an external facilitator rather than trying to run a workshop yourself and participate at the same time.

The LEGO® elements are an incredible catalyst. The different shapes and colours provide inspiration for metaphors through serendipity. When used for building metaphors, they trigger thinking and insights you were previously unaware of. Many participants report significant “Ah-ha!” moments, saying things like “I didn’t even know I knew that!” as their subconscious knowledge comes to the fore.

LEGO® Serious Play® was originally developed by the LEGO® group to unlock innovation in their own company. It is now a powerful business tool used by well known companies all around the world including Google, Qantas, Shell, Ebay, Earnst & Young, and more.

For more information see the attached PDF made available by the LEGO® Group under a creative commons licence.

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